Note: This article was originally published in The Technology Source (http://ts.mivu.org/) as: Milton Campos and Linda M. Harasim "Virtual-U:
Results and Challenges of Unique Field Trials" The Technology Source, July/August 1999. Available online at http://ts.mivu.org/default.asp?show=article&id=1034. The article is reprinted here with permission of the publisher.

The Virtual-U Research Project being developed at Simon Fraser University
(Canada) is part of the Canadian TeleLearning Network of Centres of Excellence (TL?Ç¬?NCE).
The goal of TeleLearning?Ç¬?NCE is to research and develop learning models,
methods, technologies, and social practices that support the development of a knowledge
economy and learning society in Canada. This national effort to advance telelearning
theory and practice involves approximately 130 researchers from 30 Canadian universities.
It is funded by public- and private-sector organizations; the primary funding source is
Industry Canada. One of the four major technologies that TeleLearning?Ç¬?NCE is developing
is Virtual-U.

Virtual-U is a Web-based learning environment that
is customized for the delivery of online education; it aims to support active,
collaborative learning and cross-disciplinary knowledge-building. Knowledge-building is
the intentional process of solving problems progressively and developing and acquiring
expertise (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993). The
software features a flexible framework and an integrated learning environment that links
its conferencing system (VGroups) to pedagogical resources. These resources include a
personal workspace in which users can manage their online learning tasks and activities, a
course editor for designing and editing curriculum, a course viewer for course navigation,
a file manager, a grade book, instructional tools, examples of how to teach and learn
online, and online help and support.

Virtual-U software has been under continuous development since 1996. Field trials,
which we believe to be among the largest in the world, were launched in that year to:

Data from universities, colleges, and private institutions in Canada have been
collected and analyzed. Using a multi-methodological strategy, the Virtual-U research team
examined a number of factors related to online learning in order to assess the software's
support of collaborative learning and knowledge-building. These factors included:

General data about number of universities, professors, and courses being taught with the
Virtual-U software, as well as general information about teaching and evaluation strategies;

The relationship between instructional design and user satisfaction and practice;

The patterns of interaction between instructors and students and between students and
their peers; and

The form (structure) and content (topics) of dialogue between instructors and students
and between students and their peers.

Researchers collected data through questionnaires, interviews, a limited number of case
studies, analyses of the computer log files of some courses, and transcript analyses of a
few courses. The collected information was (and continues to be) used to inform the
conceptualization and design of Virtual-U's tools. For example, researchers discovered
that online learners like to organize discussion forum messages in different ways.
Consequently, the Virtual-U conferencing system allows users to sort messages by date,
author, or threads. Researchers and developers are committed to ensuring that effective
teaching and learning remain central to, and drive the design of, the software
environment.

In addition, researchers analyzed course transcripts to examine whether the online
learning environment supports knowledge-building and collaboration. Results suggest that
conferencing systems (like Virtual-U VGroups) are a necessary but not sufficient condition
for supporting meaningful online discussions and collaboration (Campos, 1998;
Bakardjieva & Harasim, 1998). The results also suggest that the engagement of users
and the active participation of professors is essential for achieving good results. In
other words, the environment cannot foster knowledge-building and collaboration if proper
teaching and learning strategies are not present. Because of that fact, developers plan to
include templates in the conferencing system that will support specific teaching
strategies and allow learning processes, such as hypothesis formulation and in-depth
inquiry, to emerge. Moreover, in order to support professors in their educative action,
and because of recent studies by researchers working on participatory design, developers
also plan to devise a case library. The library will catalog concrete examples of good and
bad teaching practices.

Indications from Research

By 1998, approximately 230 courses from 16 post-secondary institutions (mostly in
Canada, but also in the United States and Europe) were analyzed from either general data
collection or in-depth studies. More than 150 professors have taught courses using the
software; 75% of these educators are well advanced in their teaching careers. Of that 75%,
forty-seven percent are full or associate professors, 16% are workplace trainers, and 12%
are college instructors or staff at distance education centers (Harasim, 1998). In recent
interviews with approximately one-fourth of all professors who have used the Virtual-U
learning environment, most reported that the conferencing system seems to positively
affect student learning processes and outcomes. Further experimental research is needed to
determine whether these perceived outcomes are really an indication that use of the
software enhances learning.

Educators from over 30 disciplinesfrom different artistic, scientific, and human
knowledge domainshave used the software. Reports from 1998 data indicate that
Virtual-U has been adopted most often for arts and humanities (53%) and education (23%)
courses; because they are discourse-based, these disciplines are particularly well-suited
to the software. Instructors in other fields, however, are increasingly adopting
Virtual-U. Courses as varied as movie production, dance in cyberspace, cognitive science,
justice and law enforcement, sexuality, and statistics now are being offered. Moreover,
fields such as the health sciences are increasing their Virtual-U offerings (Harasim,
1998).

Collaborative learning seems to be the dominant instructional method adopted by
instructors using Virtual-U. All of the 230 courses studied involved collaborative
components such as conferencing discussions. Twenty-six percent of these courses were
offered by discussion only; 11% included group project work; 30% included individual work;
and 33% included group and individual work (Harasim, 1998). Additional studies should be
conducted to test the use of collaborative techniques, since simply having a
discussion does not necessarily mean that collaboration is taking place.

Current and Future Challenges

As Virtual-U begins to be adopted worldwide, researchers face new challenges, such as
ensuring that the design has global relevance and usability. It is now available in two
languages (English and French), and a Spanish version is being prepared in order to
accommodate Spanish speakers in Europe as well as in North, Central, and South America.
Another challenge is to ensure that the learning environment remains user-friendly. Both
new and enhanced comprehensive tools are under continued conceptualization, development,
and testing.

Significant challenges also face developers. Virtual-U is a state-of-the-art online
learning environment; consequently, field testing requires accessibility that those
without updated computers or telecommunications bandwidth obviously lack. An
additional complication is the fact that educational institutions around the world use
multiple computing platforms. These challenges bring new opportunities to the
Virtual-U-developers to: (1) provide an online learning environment that is usable across
multiple platforms and telecommunication capabilities; and (2) explore the possibility of
creating of "virtual labs" to meet the needs of global online teaching and
learning.

For everyone involved in the production of Virtual-U, working interactively with
faculty and students to enhance the online learning environment is a priority. Developers
have engaged a selected number of professors in participatory design. This strategy
supports learning effectiveness and outcomes because educators, learners, and researchers
share knowledge and advance each other's understanding of online learning processes
(Breuleux, Laferri?É¬®re, & Bracewell, 1998; Silva &
Breuleux, 1994). Participatory
design ensures that instructional tools and strategies fulfill real needs, not
the extraneous interests of big companies or business-driven individuals acting from
within the university system (Feenberg, 1999).

Conclusion

TL?Ç¬?NCE funding for the Virtual-U project extends to the year 2002.
Over the next three years, research will focus on advanced learning models and
technologies. The TL?Ç¬?NCE will continue to incorporate research findings
into the development of both technology and pedagogy; as a result, the Network undoubtedly
will create effective telelearning modelsmodels that will prepare Canada to lead the
twenty-first century knowledge society and establish the Virtual-U learning environment as
a standard of excellence for worldwide online education.

Harasim, L. (1998, November). What are we learning about teaching and learning
onlineand so what?: Lessons from the Virtual-U field trials. Keynote
speech presented at the Third Annual TeleLearning Conference, Vancouver, Canada.